Wassell’s Thoughts: Seahawks should wait on re-signing RB Chris Carson

Welcome to another edition of Tom Wassell’s Thoughts, a regular column from the co-host of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Tom, Jake and Stacy. This week, Tom details why waiting is the way to go in two different Seahawks-based scenarios. He also has something to say about the Mariners and their uniforms, which you can read at this link.

Let’s wait on Seahawks re-signing Chris Carson

My co-host Jake Heaps tells us that his father thinks so highly of running back Chris Carson that he wants the Seahawks to extend him immediately. The way he’s played over the past few years, who could blame anyone for thinking that way? Perhaps Carson’s best ability is that which allows him to break tackles, create holes where there are none and gain yards after contact. He routinely ranks in the top five in the league in related categories.

I’d love to have Carson back, but does it make financial sense to make that deal now as opposed to waiting for the free-agent market to be set in the offseason? I think Seattle should wait. After what happened with Jadeveon Clowney, it’s tough to make a guess as to how any position group will be valued months from now. But with about a dozen suitable RBs, doesn’t common sense say that the more supply, the less demand there will be, thereby making each player a little cheaper?

Let’s ask the question as to how essential a running back is in the new Seahawks offense. Yes, any team needs a decent run game or the threat of one to set up the pass, but this isn’t 2016. The 2020 season has seen Pete Carroll and Brian Schottenheimer put the ball in Russell Wilson’s hands in a way many of us never thought we’d see. If the Seahawks needed a great running back before, they don’t need one now as much.

Clearly, there are other positions of need that we’re going to want the team to invest in for 2021, and they’ll need all the available money to do it. Why commit now to Carson? Because he deserves it? Well, he definitely deserves to be paid – by someone. If it ends up being the Seahawks, that’s terrific, but GMs can’t let emotion get in the way. That’s one of the primary rules of business.

Joe Mixon, Kenyan Drake, Kareem Hunt – put aside the off-field issues for Mixon and Hunt from a few years back, and we’re looking at some real workhorses out there. Hunt is capable of carrying drives all on his own, as are Mixon and Carson. Let’s wait and see how the market goes before committing dollars that might be best used elsewhere.

Would you attend a game at CenturyLink Field if allowed?

I asked this question to Jake and Stacy Rost the other day and both were convinced that if the Seahawks opened up the stadium to full capacity, every seat would be filled. I agree. Just knowing the passion that we have for football in this country and in this town, I’m guessing most of you would probably jump at the chance to sit in the stands even for one game, let alone eight home games.

Isn’t that strange, though? With all of the paranoia about how COVID-19 is transmitted, the directive to wear masks at all times in public, the fear over transmitting the virus to a loved one, it seems strange that we’d put all of that aside for a chance to watch our favorite team play football. Does it make us hypocrites? Fools? Maybe it does, or maybe we just want the opportunity to sniff life the way it was less than a year ago.

When some of us diet, we get a “cheat day.” After six straight days of white-knuckling our way through one dull meal after another, we finally get to gorge out on things like pizza and ice cream on that final day of the week, even though it’s not doing us any good. Maybe going to watch a football game with 68,000 other rabid fans is risky, but after all the work we’ve put in over the past several months, we’re just plain sick of it and we feel we’re owed some normalcy.

I wouldn’t do it myself. Large crowds bother me in ways that the average person might even enjoy, so count me out. But believe me, I get where y’all are coming from on this. We make decisions all the time that might be deemed unsafe. We’ve all driven over the speed limit. We eat things we shouldn’t. We don’t sleep enough. Our jobs are too stressful. What’s one day out at CenturyLink Field gonna do? The reality is that it could be disastrous.

I won’t bludgeon you over the head with a lecture on the risks of situations where social distancing protocols aren’t adhered to. It seems like we’ve made some progress though. Let’s not mess it up now.

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Also new from Tom: Why now is perfect time M’s to change uniforms